A really good intro to a song can make the difference on whether you may want to listen to the song further or not (well, maybe it doesn't, but it doesn't hurt to have something that grabs your attention)

Oden's Ride Over Nordland/A Fine Day To Die. Although 'ORON' is a track in its own right, it is hard to imagine the album opening with A Fine Day To Day, without that intro. It just wouldn't sound right. It's perfectly executed.

I'd consider the airy, acoustic intro to A Fine Day to Die itself. The hooves of the horses fade with a whinny, and the guitar slows to a trot for a moment, only to be swept off by the ethereal voice of Quorthon. The acoustic rallentando falters like a music box, then you're suddenly cast from the clouds down the mountainside where "scatteredby the campfires awaiting the dawn, two times a hundred men in battles, tried by the steel in the arrow axe and the sword." A polar but beautiful way to start the song.

That's actually what I came here to add, but another cool one is the intro to Blind Guardian's Ashes to Ashes. It's not a long intro nor an extraordinary one, but it's really odd and excites me for the song. It sounds like a goblin crawling around in a well, and complements the dark feeling I get from the song. Short and off-the-wall, but I like it.

As soon as the song opens up, you're treated a good deal with some choir ass-kicking...add in some power chords, and you're pretty much the guy on the album cover (the original album cover, not the horrid comic book art one), ready to slaughter poseurs. Pretty simple intro, but it opens into what I think is Iced Earth's magnum opus album (plus no gay-ass Gene Adam to be seen)

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ANationalAcrobat wrote:

Viking metal and pagan metal aren't legitimate sub-genres. People need to get over themselves and admit that.

Dark Angel - Hell's On Its Knees. This kind of thing was big back in the early thrash days. A lot of bands did really shitty acoustic intros for thrash songs but a few stuck out. Probably the best was Metallica's One, but again that's just something else they ripped off from Dark Angel. My Atonement by Sodom also comes to mind, but I've been on a huge thrash buzz lately. I know there are more examples in Black Metal I could give. Conjuration, while not an intro to any specific song, is the culmination of deep earthy and mystical black metal in a one minute interlude.

This goes back a bit, but the very first intro I can remember being in love with was the creepy bit at the beginning of Ozzy's "Mr. Crowley". I still dig it more than the rest of the track, which is damn good regardless.

Too many others to bother listing, but very few bands work an intro the way Cradle of Filth do.

...if you go for that sort of thing, of course.

_________________"Those that know what's best for us, must rise and save us from ourselves."

Just how the bass starts tapping this awesome melody. Next the guitar joins and and when they are about to fade, just as the drumms jump in, theres a slight change in the melody and a whole feeling of power being restrained and needs just needs to explode. And then it explodes.

I also agree with Destroyer 666´s I am the Wargod. Fucking great song.

The intro to Bitter Peace by Slayer has always given me a bit of a stiffy. It was quite creepy listening to it as a 13 year old who was completely unfamiliar with Slayer, aside from their slightly falsely propagated reputation as the epitome of everything dark and evil in metal.

_________________See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpionsand over all the power of the enemy.Nothing will harm you.

Testament - "Beginning of the End"The album intro to Souls of Black fades in with intense, shredding acoustic guitars before the thrashing "Face in the Sky". I love the twist on the acoustic intro and how quick it all comes and goes.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnNk7fej8PQ

I'm gonna have to say Manowar's Warriors of the World United, it isn't the greatest intro out their but it always, always gets me pumped and ready for the song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ0sW7KOFhU I can't hear this and not start head banging and pumping my fist.

_________________Man is truly a wretched thing, and the forest is committed to expunging him from existence.

Queensryche - Queen of the Reich and Take Hold of the FlameJudas Priest - Hellion/Electric eye and PainkillerParadise Lost - As I DieSlayer -South of Heaven and Hell AwaitsBlack Sabbath - E5150/Mob Rules and Iron ManSepultura - Refuse/ResistOzzy - Mr. CrowleyDeath - The PhilosopherMetallica - For Whom the Bell Tolls and Fight Fire With FireFlotsam and Jetsam - No Place For DisgraceDio - Jesus, Mary & The Holy Ghost

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mjollnir wrote:

Noble Beast's debut album is way beyond MOST of what Priest did in the 80s.